Table of contents for December 2015 - January 2016 in RECOIL OFFGRID

Was it betrayal? Was that the sickening feeling that grew in my stomach as the skulls on my monitor began to pinwheel? They spun and they laughed. It felt like they were laughing at me. Computers were my life, and my livelihood. How could they turn against me like this? My intern, Mimi, stood behind me, peering over my shoulder at the demonic images unfolding, unwelcomed on the computer screen. I knew exactly what this was. This was the work of some high-level hacker, or a group of them. How big was this event, I wondered. If they hacked Google, what other systems did they get into? No sooner than I completed that thought, I discovered another place they had entered. The lights, the monitor, the AC, and all of…

The little voice in the back of your mind has always worried that this day would come, and it finally has. As you glance back at the city skyline burning in your wake, you hear the gunshots, blood-curdling screams, and smashing of glass. You wonder nervously if your family is safe, as you egress from this dying metropolis. All the gear and food you’ve stored, all the hours spent training and improving, and here you are — hundreds of miles away from your hometown and your family, on a business trip with a group of people you barely know. You pass an abandoned police car, painfully glancing inside at the empty rifle rack. The sounds of gunfire grow closer, and your group picks up the pace. People are going feral,…

What makes a truly great survival vehicle? If someone asked you this question, you might reply with qualities like a powerful engine, high ground clearance, a huge payload of supplies, bright auxiliary lights, winches, push bars, and possibly even armor plating. Although we can certainly agree that all these features could come in handy, they also have a tendency to make the vehicle in question conspicuous — and in a survival scenario, that’s the last thing you want to be. If your ride’s appearance screams, “I’m prepared for anything,” sooner or later someone less prepared will try to take it from you. That said, consider a mobile survival platform that’s common enough to blend in, spacious enough to be comfortable, and tough enough to use for years without repairs. Fortunately,…

My first real machete was a classic U.S. Army-issue parkerized machete made by Ontario that was part of the field kit issued to me when I was a team leader for POW/MIA investigation teams in Vietnam and Laos. After using it in the field a few times, I learned to hate the clunky handle scales that were about as ergonomic as a 2-by-4. After I replaced them with some home-spun scales made from Hawaiian Koa wood, it worked a whole lot better. After experimenting with a number of native Vietnamese and Lao machete patterns, I finally invested in a Blackjack Knives Panga — a lightweight, extremely fast machete that was more like a Filipino barong than a traditional sweptpoint African panga. Its injection-molded rubber scales were extremely comfortable and offered…

Late night infomercials either suck you in or result in lost credibility. They do tend to be very efective for products that need a more detailed explanation or benefit from demonstrations. At some point, you may have seen an infomercial about a vacuum sealer. It might have been full of hyperbole with a host sporting a cool accent and a studio audience stocked with people who would probably give a standing ovation to a small poodle lazily licking himself. As any hunters in our readership probably already know, don’t let any of those negative associations sway you — vacuum sealers are truly handy and useful appliances. Air Is Life Remember that periodic table you had to memorize back in grade school? The eighth element, oxygen, is highly reactive and easily…

There’s almost nothing that can’t be done digitally. Looking for a companion? There are dating apps like Tinder. Need to deposit a check? Snap a pic of it and send it to your bank. Looking for a new bug-out bag? Do some online window shopping. The list goes on. And, unfortunately, so too do the ways in which we make ourselves vulnerable on the Web. With the rise of virtual pickpockets, cyber terrorists, hacktivist groups, and militarized hackers, we as a society are getting more susceptible to online attacks — unless small businesses, large corporations, and government agencies beef up their security protocols. Of course, we each have a responsibility to protect ourselves online (see “Cyber Crimes” on Page 68 for strategies), but we’re focusing here on companies because when…

1 MAKE & MODE Hults Bruk Axes Tornea WEIGHT 2.88 pounds MSRP $99 URL www.hultsbruk1697.se + NOTES Chainsaws are great — except when there’s no gas or electricity to run them. Enter the medium-sized Tornea axe. Its hand-forged Swedish steel head and 26-inch American hickory handle can help you fell small trees, chop wood to size, and serve as an impromptu self-defense weapon. Hults Brook has operated in Sweden since 1697 — yes, for more than 300 years! — but 2015 marks the frst time its axes are available stateside. 2 MAKE & MODEL Exotac tinderZip MSRP $7 URL www.exotac.com + NOTES Out in the wild there’s a thin line between a good time and Steve-brokehis-ankle-and-is-tooheavy-to-carry-outof-the-woods-tonight kinda time. That line is sometimes a warm lifegiving fre. The innovative tinderZip hides…

I knew as soon as the lights went out that we’d waited too long. Mimi and I should have beat feet as soon as the first news reports about the hack began to surface. Instead, we just sort of assumed things would return to normal quickly, just like always. I mean, we’d had power outages before, but they’d never lasted more than a few hours at the most. This, though…this was diferent. The good news was that the temperature outside had dropped considerably. It was still pretty darn hot, but at least it wasn’t sweltering. The bad news was that, like in any city, the freaks came out at night. And that was during “normal” times. There was nothing normal about what was happening. The news reports had mentioned several…

Does this sound familiar? SUBJECT: HELP! STUCK OVERSEAS I’ve contacted my bank and the embassy, the embassy is willing to assist me but my funds are depleted to pay for a new passport fees and other miscellaneous expenses. I don’t have access to my account over and My bank said it would take 5 working days to access funds from my account. Please can you lend me some funds? I’ ll pay back, as soon as I return home. I desperately await your response, Fred Jones You may have received phishing-type emails like this before. Fred Jones is just a pseudonym in this case, but used as an example to show you that it’s interchangeable with any name. If you’re on that hacked individual’s list of contacts, you may be…

Eddie Rickenbacker is most noted for his exploits as a World War I pilot, achieving the title of Ace of Aces with 26 confirmed kills. He was awarded the Medal of Honor, seven Distinguished Service Crosses, and the World War I Victory Medal, among many other accolades. A true American badass if ever there was one. Although most military history bufs may be aware of his record in the First World War, Rickenbacker actually escaped an early demise numerous times as a precocious kid, race car driver, and airline owner. One of Rickenbacker’s most famous near-death experiences happened after he returned to civilian life. In October 1942, then head of Eastern Air Lines, but still a celebrity of sorts, he was asked to participate in a tour of bases in…

People tend to think that all they need to do is pop a pill (of both the medicinal and supplemental kind) and their joints will be perfectly fine. What they don’t realize is that the first step in joint health is to stay active, a key component in preventing injuries and also alleviating past pains. You might be asking, “What does joint pain have to do with prepping?” Sure, it’s easy to focus on working on bushcraft or testing out your latest bug-out bag. But how will you worry about any of that if you’ve blown out your knee while fleeing the initial catastrophe? Prepping also includes preparing and repairing the hardware you were born with, not just the ones you buy at the army surplus store. So, how can…

Conventional wisdom tells us rechargeable flashlights shouldn’t be the first type of light to grab when facing an end-ofdays scenario. What we need is a reliable light that’s quickly put into use, and disposable cell lights do just that. When the faint beam of your flashlight finally peters out, it’ll only take a matter of seconds to swap out the tired batteries for a new set, and — bam! — you’ve once again got the sun in the palm of your hand. But what about a long-term survival situation? Between the food, water, and other gear you have to manage, you’re bound to run out of batteries at some point. The only thing better than having access to light when you need it is having an unlimited way to power…

The darkness only lasted for a few seconds before the boutique’s emergency lights activated. I could feel Mimi’s grip on my arm starting to relax. The emergency lights created an eerie mix of light and shadow that almost resembled some private party room in the basement of a nightclub. “What do we do now?” Mimi asked. “There’s nothing more we can do,” I replied. “Let’s get everything locked up and try to find a way home.” After shutting down the computers and securing some important documents and computer hard drives in the studio’s safe, it was time to find a way home. I wiped away the sweat from my forehead. The power had only been out about 15 minutes, but it was already getting warm inside the boutique. The stagnant…

Armchair preppers seem to think that splitting firewood (and every other skill) is pretty easy in a survival situation. It must be — those survival guys on TV make it look so quick and easy, and they probably didn’t even go to college. But when the harsh reality sets in, and these watchers try to become doers, they find that cutting wood is like every other worthy activity in life — there’s some skill involved and practice required. These soft-palmed TV addicts might not even be able to chop a little piece of wood in two with their expensive survival knives. And this is the point where they realize that they don’t know the right technique. If they only knew how to use a baton … WARNING! This is not…

Two of my all-time favorite knives actually began life as aluminum trainers that I designed for practicing big-blade tactics. The frst one was a custom barong trainer that I designed as one of the souvenir items for my 2005 Martial Blade Camp training event. Made by Edges 2, the trainers and the tactics I taught to go with them were very well received by my students at the camp. To thank me for that experience, one of my certifed instructors, Michael Rigg, took up a collection from the students and approached Canadian custom knife-maker Brent Beshara to render the trainer design as a live blade. Afer Brent did a portion of the work, he realized that the heat treating was beyond the capabilities of his shop and enlisted the help…

Do you ever start shopping for a new knife, read a few catalogs, browse a few websites, or thumb through a magazine, and suddenly feel like you forgot how to speak English? Knife manufacturers love to litter their marketing with all sorts of fancy terms like flat grinds, chisel grinds, Scandi grinds, zero bevels, mid-tech, forged, stock removal, textured G-10, S30V, Damascus, and pattern-welded — but what do all these terms mean? How does understanding these terms make one a better prepper? They really are pretty easy to understand once you get your head wrapped around them. Knife-makers are a sensible lot and most of these terms have pretty direct meanings, but even after knowing what they mean, it still takes a little trial and error to determine which grind,…